“Turmoil”: Battle for the Han Empire sample (Act I) -- T. P. M. Thorne

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They were recalled when Emperor Ling died suddenly and left the nation with yet another source of chaos, this time a dynastic crisis as the supporters of the heir, Liu Bian, and his younger half-brother, Liu Xie, fought with pen and dagger. The rebels took advantage of the opportunity to create independent states for themselves, and Dong Zhuo - who was supposed to remain in the Liang region to quell them - courted them instead and grew his own base in southern Mei County. Dong Zhuo was invited to the capital by Commander-in-Chief Hè Jin and his aide Yuan Shao, their intent being to use Dong Zhuo’s fearsome reputation as a subjugator of rebels and barbarians to intimidate the Empress Dowager - Hè Jin’s own sister - into signing an arrest - and, technically, death - warrant for the ‘Ten Attendants’; but by the time that Dong Zhuo had arrived, the ‘Ten’ had killed Hè Jin and abducted the young emperor and his brother, and Yuan Shao had led a force into the palace to chase down and kill the ‘Ten’. Dong Zhuo’s found Emperor Shao and Prince Liu Xie before better men could, and that gave him the first platform that he needed to become Chancellor of State and a near-unstoppable tyrant.

Dong Zhuo had now been dead for three years after ruling for two: now the capital Luoyang was in ruins and its Emperor Shao dead, the result of Dong Zhuo’s plans to rule from Chang’an - due to its closeness to his Liang Province allies - with Liu Xie as Emperor Xian. In the aftermath of Lü Bu’s assassination of his former stepfather, Dong’s subordinates had formed two camps: one - those that Director of the Imperial Secretariat Wang Yun deemed ‘unforgivable’ - coalesced to plot yet another coup, while the others joined Lü Bu in restoring order in Chang’an. But Wang Yun’s successful coercion of Lü Bu to murder Dong Zhuo had only given him the briefest of victories: Dong’s senior advisers, Jia Xu and Li Ru, outwitted Lü Bu, regained the support of Dong’s ally Hu Zhen, and retook Chang’an.

Wang Yun committed suicide for the sake of his clan; Lü Bu fled the capital with his followers; and Li Jue and Guo Si - now the most powerful of Dong Zhuo’s former vassals - seized power as joint regents with Jia Xu and Li Ru as their guides.
     The teenaged Emperor Xian tried to impose his will on his new regents, but they were as irreverent as Dong Zhuo: it was only the intervention of other former vassals, like Jia Xu, Li Ru, Hu Zhen and Zhang Ji, that prevented another regicide. But there would be one more drama before the current - relative - calm: Liu Yan - the Governor of Yi Province in the far west of Han China, and a relative of the Han Emperor - made a pact with the Qiang warlords Ma Teng and Han Sui and launched an attack on Chang’an, though whether his intent was to rescue or supplant the emperor was not clear. The attack cost Liu Yan his three eldest sons and shortened his life, while Ma Teng and Han Sui escaped relatively unscathed; Regent Li Jue used the campaign to promote his nephew Li Li, and some of his more powerful allies - including General Hu Zhen - met sudden and suspicious ends. The regents were, at the end of the campaign, more powerful than ever, having humiliated Liu Yan and earned the begrudging respect of their Qiang neighbours. Incursions and rebellions all but ceased in the south of Liang, and with Jia Xu as a guiding force - Li Ru having ‘retired’ after a public rebuke from Emperor Xian over his part in the deaths of Empress Dowager Hè and Emperor Shao - the regents seemed to be a somewhat acceptable medium between the weak, corrupt Han government of recent times and Dong Zhuo’s violent dictatorship. For some, however, a return to the norms of Han Dynasty rule was the only acceptable future.

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